


Battle Body

by Mayamali



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Brothers, Gen, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 16:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5934985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayamali/pseuds/Mayamali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A commission request featuring the skelebros. Gen, non-ship, with a terrible abuse of capslock.</p><p>Sans helps his brother with a project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Body

“SANS!”

He snorted quietly with a jolt, the sound breaking him from his state of half-wakeness. He was stretched out on their lumpy, jangly couch. Some catchy tune wafting from the television's speakers had been lulling him to sleep, interrupted by the screeching call of his brother: “SANS! COME UP HERE, YOU LAZYBONES!”

Sans stretched, joints popping from disuse, and sat up, rubbing his eye sockets with a large yawn.

His brother was loud. Admittedly, it was part of his charm. Papyrus seemed to have no filter, either for his personal thoughts or his personal volume. It only added to the stark contrast the brothers seemed to have. Where Papyrus was loud, Sans was quiet (relatively; once you got him going, there was no telling what might come out of his mouth). Where Papyrus was tall, Sans was short.

Where Papyrus was driven, ambitious, and open, Sans was lazy. Apathetic. A closed door with a lock and no sign of a key.

Regardless, he slid off of the couch and shuffled to the stairs. They creaked under his weight.

Papyrus was in his room, sitting cross-legged on the floor and tapping his fingers against the bones of his arms with an unimpressed scowl. “THAT TOOK LONGER THAN USUAL! WHAT WERE YOU DOING DOWN THERE??”

“Sleeping,” Sans said with a shrug. “S'up, bro?”

“OF COURSE YOU WERE SLEEPING!!” Papyrus threw his arms in the air with an almost comical flail. “BUT NOW YOU'RE HERE! SO!” He spread his arms to draw Sans' attention to the fire-pattern rug underneath him. On the rug was an assortment of bolts of cloth in various colors, a pair of safety scissors, and glue. Oh boy.

“Gettin' your craft on, bro?” Sans asked, hands in the pockets of his shorts. He'd left his hoodie downstairs, using it as a makeshift blanket.  
“YES!” Papyrus nodded proudly, puffing his chest up. “AND I'M GOING TO LET YOU HELP ME!”  
“Help with what?”  
“THE COSTUME PARTY, SANS! DON'T TELL ME YOU FORGOT!”

Oh. The costume party. Sans had forgotten they'd been invited to one of those. “Whoops. Look at me, being a big bonehead.”  
“SANS!!” Papyrus shrieked, earning a deep chuckle from his brother before he regained his composure. “WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT OUR COSTUMES!”

Sans took his hands from his pockets to think for a moment. As silly as a costume party was, he couldn't say no to Papyrus. Not when he was this excited about something – and especially not when he'd already bought the supplies. “Okay, okay. Well, someone as cool as you needs something extra cool.”  
“RIGHT!!” Papyrus paused, then gasped dramatically, eyes wide. “I COULD DRESS UP LIKE UNDYNE!! SHE'S COOL! AND MAYBE SHE'LL LET ME IN THE ROYAL GUARD IF SHE SEES ME IN UNIFORM!”  
“Yeah, yeah – armor's definitely cool.” Sans dropped to the floor, eyeing the fabric in thought. “But...”  
“BUT??”  
“But you're not Undyne. You're the Great Papyrus, bro. You need something that's you.”

Papyrus thought on this, rubbing his chin and furrowing his brow ridge. “SOMETHING THAT'S 'ME'????”  
“Yeah. Undyne sees your initiative, she'll have to consider you.” Sans slipped a hand behind his back to cross his fingers.  
“HMM... SANS!” Papyrus barked his brother's name in a sharp and totally unnecessary manner. “THAT ISN'T A TERRIBLE IDEA FOR ONCE!”

The translation in Sans' head: “You're right.”

“Yeah, so – hold up a sec.” Sans blinked, and although he was still in Papyrus' room, he was now standing. And he was now holding a tape measurer as well. Getting up to walk was too much of a hassle for one little thing, after all. “Stand up, let's measure you.”  
“WOWIE!” Papyrus clapped his hands to his face and jumped to his feet. “A TOTALLY BRAND-NEW OUTFIT JUST FOR ME!!”

Sans had learned to tune out Papyrus' excited babbling a long time ago; he'd found his brother was more than happy to listen to the sound of his own voice as long as Sans said 'sure' and 'uh-huh' on occasion. Which is exactly what he did as he took his measurements.

“Okay. So now we gotta cut out stuff so they match up to these.” Sans reached an arm down towards the scissors, but didn't bend his body to actually pick them up. “But... ugh... so... far away...”  
“UGH!! YOU BIG BABY!” Papyrus snatched up the scissors with a groan. “WHATEVER WOULD YOU DO WITHOUT SUCH A COOL GUY TAKING CARE OF YOU??”  
Sans shrugged. “Who knows?” And this time, he was serious.

Papyrus had grabbed a hideous, gaudy, purple-y color of fabric that Sans made sure to telekinetically push into the closet the first chance he got. “Hey I think Undyne's right outside your window!” he'd said quickly, eye flaring blue for just a second while Papyrus gasped dramatically and looked towards the window with excitement. “Whoops. Actually, that was just a branch.”  
“SANS, WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR WEIRDLY UNDYNE-SHAPED BRANCHES! WE HAVE WORK TO DO!”

The white, red, blue, and yellow had some merit, though, so Sans set Papyrus to work with the glue, vowing to borrow Alphys' sewing machine once Papyrus left for his guard station (even if it meant he had to promise to be on food duty for the things lurking in her lab; Papyrus had bought the 'losing weight' excuse to explain the dog food before).  
He hadn't even realized how long they'd been working until Papyrus was shaking him by the shoulders. “SANS! SLEEPYHEAD! YOU DIDN'T TELL ME YOU COULD SLEEP-SCISSOR!! I ADMIRE YOUR DEDICATION TO THIS, BUT THAT'LL NEVER FIT!”  
He blinked and looked down at his hands. At some point, Sans had fallen asleep, clearly, but he'd also managed to cut out a long, flowing piece of red fabric, too big for anything for Papyrus to wear. “Oh. Whoops.”

A good night's sleep, glue clean-up, and a visit to Alphys' lab later (feeding duty scored him some cool scrap metal to reinforce everything), and the only thing that Sans was unsure about was that weird red fabric he'd cut up in his sleep the night before. It was cold out there, and even though Papyrus had no skin, it was better to be safe than sorry, so Sans had made up some protective gloves as well. But it still left him with scrap fabric that couldn't be tucked away for later use – at least, not that he could figure.

It was on his way back home from Grillby's, waving a vague greeting to the local children with their long, trailing scarves that Sans could figure it out.

“A CAPE?!?!”  
Sans grinned (more-so than usual) and shrugged. “Every cool guy needs a cool cape, right?”  
Papyrus made a long, wheezing sound of inhalation, eyes practically growing to the size of teacup saucers before he scooped Sans up into a tight hug. “IT'S PERFECT!! SANS, YOU'RE VAGUELY-SIXTH-BEST!”  
Sans coughed at the sudden impact, recovering with a “Heh. Who're the first five?”  
“ME, UNDYNE, METTATON, THE GREATER DOG, AND THE LESSER DOG, OF COURSE!” Papyrus said this like it should be obvious, setting Sans back down on the ground and swirling around in his new costume. “I'LL CALL IT MY 'BATTLE BODY'!! THERE'S NO WAY I CAN BE DEFEATED WEARING SUCH SOPHISTICATED ARMOR!” His excitement died down for a moment as he tapped his new red glove against his chin in thought. “OH!! BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU, SANS? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DRESS UP AS?”

Sans thought long and hard about this, curling over to rest his chin on his knuckles and close his eyes. “Hmm...” Finally, he stood back up and shrugged, closing one eye with a cheeky grin. “I'm gonna be a skeleton.”  
“OH!! OKAY.” Papyrus started to nod. His nodding grew slower, and his eyes grew smaller, peering at Sans suspiciously. A full five seconds after, he groaned. “SANS! YOU'RE TERRIBLE, THE WORST!!”

And it was with half-pride, half-embarrassment that Papyrus displayed his battle body alongside his brother, who had settled on wearing a black turtleneck and black pants with white bones lazily painted on them.


End file.
